EARTO calls on MEPs to hold their position on EFSI

EARTO, the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations, has sent an open letter to Members of the European Parliament, congratulating them for their work on defining and voting on a position to amend the EC's draft regulation on the European Fund for Strategic Investments. At their meeting on Monday, 20 April 2015, the European Parliament's Budgets and Economic and Monetary Affairs committees had supported the Strategic Investment Plan (EFSI), but had contested plans to feed the fund from the EU research and transport investment budgets, and had called for more parliamentary control over its leadership and goals.

EARTO is in full support of the position taken by the European Parliament and, on behalf of its 350 member organisations, calls on the EP negotiators to "hold [their] position during the trilogue negotiations".

In the open letter, EARTO in particularly welcomes the following positions taken by the EP:

Supporting EFSI creation while also keeping the support to EU R&I activities already on-going within the Horizon2020 programme;

Protecting Horizon2020’s planned budget, and by doing so avoiding to enter into a discussion of which parts of the programme should suffer more or less cuts;

Including R&I as one of the key priorities for projects to be financed under the new EFSI Funds.